The imprint technique is a micromachining technique in which a mold having a fine pattern is pressed against a resin layer of a liquid resin and the like on a substrate to thus transfer the pattern of the mold to the resin layer. Such fine pattern includes those in the nanoscale at the 10 nm level and those in approximately 100 μm and is used in various fields, such as semiconductor materials, optical materials, storage media, micromachines, biotechnology, and environmental technology.
Molds having a fine pattern in nano order on the surface take time to form the pattern and thus are very expensive. It is therefore difficult to increase the size (increase the area) of such mold having a fine pattern in nano order on the surface.
In PTL 1, repeated imprint using a small mold while shifting the mold position not to overlap the processing area enables imprint in a large area (step and repeat method).